An Introduction to the Indian Evidence ACT; The Principles of Judicial Evidence

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... T. Cask Of R. V. Palmer.1 On the 14th of May, 1856, William Palmer was tried at the Old Bailey, under powers conferred on the Court of Queen's Bench by 19 Vic, c. 16, for the murder of John Parsons Cook at Rugeley, in Staffordshire. The trial lasted twelve days, and ended on the 27th May, when the prisoner was convicted, and received sentence of death, on which he was afterwards executed at Stafford. Palmer was a general medical practitioner at Rugeley, much engaged in sporting transactions. Cook, his intimate friend, was also a sporting man; and after attending Shrewsbury races with him on the 13th November, 1855, returned in his company to Rugeley, and died at the Talbot Arms Hotel, at that place, soon after midnight, on the 21st November, 1855, under circumstances which raised a suspicion that he had been poisoned by Palmer. The case against Palmer was that he had a strong motive to murder his friend and that his conduct before, at the time of and after his death, coupled with the circumstances of the death itself, left no reasonable doubt that he did murder him by poison l Reprinted from my "General View of the Criminal Law of England," p. 357. ing him with antimony and strychnine, administered on various occasions--the antimony probably being used as a preparation for the strychnine. The evidence stood as follows:--At the time of Cook's death, Palmer was involved in bill transactions which appear to have begun in the year 1853. His wife died in September, 1854, and on her death he received £13,000 on policies on her life, nearly the whole of which was applied to the discharge" of his liabilities.3 In the course of the year 1855 he raised other large' Bums, amounting in all to £13,500, on what purported to be acceptances of...